Sanadas and Queens and Mad Hatters
by Plural Force
Summary: In which there is much screwing around with a famous story, Yagyuu has an identity crisis, and Yukimura wears a bunny suit. Presenting Rikkai in Wonderland. Tons of crack with some light Yukimura/Sanada.


Original publishing date: October 7, 2007

Another fic that I originally wrote for an LJ challenge comm. Both the idea and the character roles were based on a piece of fanart that I can no longer find. I'm quite fond of this one, despite (or because of?) the fact that it's pure crack. Put up unedited from the original version on LJ. (Also, all of my knowledge of Alice in Wonderland comes from Wikipedia.)

Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis.

-ooo-

Yukimura knew it was a dream almost instantly.

Because really, when Sanada Genichiroh was standing there wearing a frilly blue dress, how could it _not_ be a dream?

As is usually the case with dreams, Yukimura was also easily able to tell where they were and what was going on. He was in a forest, surrounded by pecan trees [although Yukimura wasn't quite sure how he knew they were pecan, specifically], walking along a dusty path. Sanada was walking maybe ten or fifteen feet ahead of him; the other boy hadn't turned around or even acknowledged Yukimura yet, but he knew it was Sanada.

What's more, Sanada was wearing a pale blue dress. _Sanada._

"...Alice in Wonderland," Yukimura mused after a moment. "So Sanada is Alice? Then if I'm following Alice, I'm..." At this he paused. No one supposed to be following Alice. But then...

Yukimura took a moment then to look down at himself. _What the-_ He started slightly. (But only slightly. He _was_ the buchou of Rikkai after all; he had a reputation to uphold.) He hadn't realized it before, but Yukimura's outfit consisted of none other than a Playboy bunny costume.

The blue-haired boy paused then to consider this. He, Yukimura Seiichi, the commanding, fear- and awe-inspiring Rikkai buchou. In a bunny suit.

"...Hm." He raised an eyebrow indifferently. "I suppose it'll do." In any other situation, he would've been bitching about it at least a little bit; however, this was a dream, and everyone knew dreams weren't logical; plus, there was the knowledge that none of his teammates would ever _actually_ see him like this.

...And besides, the fishnets were actually pretty soft.

"So I suppose I'm the White Rabbit, then?" Yukimura continued to wonder as he walked down the path. "Somehow, I never quite imagined him like this." Pause. "And why am _I_ following _Alice_?"

Putting the identity mystery aside for the moment, Yukimura focused instead on Sanada, whose figure was growing farther and father away. Feeling a bit of concern rise up inside him, Yukimura called out, "Sanada!"

No answer.

Frowning, Yukimura tried again, calling louder this time. "Sanada!"

Still no answer. No reaction, even. Sanada didn't even seem to notice he was there.

Before Yukimura could call out a third time, two green-and-white blurs jumped out in front of him. "Stop!" they yelled simultaneously. Disoriented, Yukimura lost his balance momentarily and fell onto the dusty ground.

Yukimura glared up at the offenders, taking note of their appearances. Both were wearing matching white shirts with matching green pants and suspenders; their faces, however, differed greatly. The one on the left had messy white hair pulled back in a rat-tail, and a tricky I-know-something-you-don't grin. The one on the right had neatly combed brown hair, and reflective glasses that made it difficult to see his eyes.

Yukimura got to his feet and dusted himself off, maintaining as much dignity as one possibly could while wearing a bunny suit. "And you are?" he asked with an icy glance at the two.

The one on the left shrugged slightly, seemingly unaffected by Yukimura's coldness. He pointed to himself. "Tweedledee," he said. Then he pointed to the one next to him. "Tweedledum."

Yukimura raised an eyebrow. "I see," he said. "In that case, you-"

"Hold it," the one on the right interrupted, turning to his partner in an unamused manner. "You're Tweedledum. _I'm_ Tweedledee."

The one on the left stared at the one on the right boredly. "You sure?" he drawled.

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Got any proof?"

"I- what?" The one on the right stopped, frowning.

The one on the left spread his arms in a "come on" sort of gesture. "I _mean_, how can you be entirely sure which one you are? I was always informed that _you_ were Tweedledum, and i_I/i_ was Tweedledee."

"I-" The one on the right's eye twitched slightly. "It doesn't _matter_ which one I am. But I always thought-"

"Screw what you thought," the one on the left- Tweedledee-dum, Yukimura silently called him- interrupted. "_I'm_ saying that while we're here, I make the rules, and I-"

"Who decided that you made the rules?" the one on the right- Tweedledum-dee- demanded. "Maybe I don't _want_ to be Tweedledum. Maybe I _want-_"

"ENOUGH!" Yukimura yelled. The Tweedles both looked at him.

Yukimura let out a deep sigh. "Now look here," he said clearly. "I don't care _which_ one of you is Tweedledee or Tweedledum or Tweedledoodoo for all I care-" at this there were protests from both of them- "but _both_ of you are in the _wrong story._"

They blinked at him.

Tweedledee-dum shrugged again, and inquired lazily, "So?"

Yukimura gritted his teeth. _"So,"_ he ground out, "This is _Alice in Wonderland._ You two are supposed to be in _Through the Looking Glass._"

At this, Tweedledee-dum grinned impishly. "How can you be _sure_ it's-"

"Don't you start," Yukimura interrupted. "This is my dream. It's Alice in Wonderland because I say it is."

They both stared at him for a moment. "...Sounds good to me," Tweedledee-dum conceded. "Hard to argue with logic like that."

Tweedledum-dee sighed, mouth pressed into a tight line. "Just so you know," he informed Yukimura, "this was not my idea."

"I don't care whose idea it was," Yukimura said. "You both have made me lose sight of Sanada." And indeed, looking down the path, the older boy was already long gone.

"Sanada?" Tweedledee-dum raised an eyebrow.

"...Alice," Yukimura corrected.

"Ahhh." Tweedledee-dum nodded knowingly, grinning evilly; Tweedledum-dee smirked briefly. Then they parted, each moving to opposite sides of the path to let Yukimura pass.

"...That was odd," Yukimura decided as he continued along the path. "Although, I really shouldn't expect anything less from those two, even in a dream."

A few minutes later, the dusty path reached a fork in the road. In many stories, the two paths forking are distinctly different; the path on the left is bright and sunny and chirping with birds, and the path on the right is dark and dreary and dismal. This was a particularly troublesome dream, however, and therefore both of the paths looked exactly alike.

"...This is a dilemma," Yukimura murmured. He had no idea which path Sanada had taken, and if he guessed randomly, he had an equal chance of getting it right as he did of getting it wrong. That meant there was a good chance that he would find Sanada, but if he guessed wrong and he _didn't_ find Sanada, then by the time he realized it then it would be too late and he'd have to backtrack and by then Sanada would be so far ahead that-

"Looking for something?" a voice drawled from overhead.

Yukimura looked up. Sitting in a branch on the tree right in the middle of the fork was a curly-haired boy, wearing a one-piece black cat suit.

"Or rather," the cat boy continued, grinning, "some_one_?"

Yukimura looked at him calmly. "And you are?"

The cat boy kept grinning. "Cheshire Cat at your service, buchou," he intoned. "Answer the question."

Yukimura cocked his head slightly at him. "Have you seen Alice?"

The Cheshire Cat grinned lazily, leaning back on his tree branch. "Alice, eh? Maaaybe. Describe her for me."

"He's tall, black hair, wears a blue dress."

"Ah, _that_ Alice!" The Cat smacked his palm with his fist. "Yeah, I talked to her. Can't quite remember which way she went, though."

Yukimura stared him down. "Cheshire Cat. Which way did he go?"

"I mean, I think I might've pointed her down the left road, but if she didn't listen to me and took the right road instead..."

"Cheshire Cat."

The Cat continued obliviously. "But maybe she _did_ listen to me and took the left road... but then maybe I pointed her down the right road instead..."

Yukimura had had enough. _"Akaya!"_

"Okay, okay, I'm done!" the Cheshire Cat cried. "I'm pretty sure it was that way." He pointed to the path on Yukimura's left.

"Thank you," Yukimura said curtly. Starting foward, the boy stopped a moment later. "...You're sure."

"Yeah. Mostly."

Yukimura nodded and continued on. That was the best answer he was going to get.

After walking for a good ten minutes down the path, Yukimura found himself in a clearing. In the center of the clearing was a long, rectangular table. Seated at the head of the table was a boy with bright pinkish-red hair and a massive top hat. In the first seat on the left was Sanada-Alice.

Yukimura blinked. "Sanada!"

Sanda blinked back. "Yukimura!" He frowned confusedly. "...What are you _wearing_?"

"Nevermind that." Yukimura flapped a hand, waving away the matter, as he sat down in the first seat on the right. "The Mad Hatter, I presume," he said to the redhead.

The Mad Hatter bowed slightly in his seat. "None other," he said, grinning. (This grin was different from Tweedledee-dum's I-know-more-than-you grin or the Cheshire Cat's up-to-no-good grin; no, this was more of a gleeful grin.) "Welcome to our very merry un-birthday party."

Yukimura raised an eyebrow. "It's not my birthday. It's not Sanada's, either, for that matter. Or yours, even."

"Ah, but that's why they call it an _un_-birthday party," the Mad Hatter pointed out cheerfully. "Catch my drift, buchou?"

Yukimura frowned. "I'm not your buchou here."

"What are you saying? Of course you are!" the Mad Hatter shouted, throwing his arms up in the air. "You're the buchouiest buchou in all Buchou-Land!"

Yukimura gave him The Look.

"It's true," the Mad Hatter defended. "And anyone who says otherwise will get their ass kicked."

"_His_ ass kicked," Yukimura corrected automatically. "And it is not true. This is a dream. I'm the White Rabbit here. I'm not a buchou."

At this the Mad Hatter shivered and leaned closer to Yukimura. "Don't say that," he whispered fearfully. "The Queen will get mad."

"The Queen?" Yukimura raised an eyebrow calmly at him. (He'd been doing a lot of eyebrow raising lately, it seemed.) "You mean the Queen of Hearts?"

"Yeah," the Mad Hatter replied. "You _don't_ want to get on her bad side. She's _scary_ when she's angry. And she _always_ gets mad when someone questions your title as buchou."

"My title?" Yukimura stared at him. "How does the Queen of Hearts know who I am?"

The Mad Hatter shrugged. "Beats me. I just know that she does."

"Well, no matter." Yukimura sipped at the cup of tea that had randomly appeared in front of him out of nowhere. "I've found Sanada now; I don't need to know about this Queen of Hearts of yours."

A cold wind suddenly blew through the clearing, and the scenery around them changed. Yukimura and Sanada suddenly found themselves standing in front of a golden throne in the middle of a grand throne room. A moment later, a figure stepped out from the shadows on the left. The figure was wearing an elaborate dress of black, white, and red, and had short, neat brown hair, and unmistakable closed eyes.

Yukimura started. "Renji!" he said quietly. "You're the Queen of Hearts?"

Renji frowned at him and Sanada. "I'm sorry, Seiichi," he said. "But it can't be helped. _Off with their heads."_

And then Renji drew out a tennis racket and aimed a serve straight at them, and Yukimura and Sanada had nothing to do but run. They found themselves running across a line of tennis courts that had not been there before, trying to escape, but it was no use. No matter how fast they ran, the ball kept gaining on them.

At the last minute, the ball gained an extra burst of speed and shot forward, aimed directly at Yukimura's head. He had no time to think before there was a cry of "Yukimura!" and a blur of colors and flash of pain, and all of a sudden he was laying on the ground flat on his back, with something large and heavy on top of him. Yukimura blinked. It was Sanada.

"Sanada..." Yukimura murmured as they both managed to sit up, his brain only just processing what had happened. "You... took that ball for me?"

Sanada looked up at him through his bangs. Had it been anyone else, the expression would have been a glare; however, Yukimura could see the faint hint of a blush staining Sanda's cheeks.

Yukimura smiled. On impulse, he leaned forward and kissed Sanada's cheek softly. "Thank you," he murmured. Sanada stuttered.

And then his alarm clock was beeping at him and Yukimura was groaning and rolling around in his bed, emerging from the bleariness of sleep. Finally, as all the details of the dream came back to him, Yukimura flopped onto his back and uttered one sentence:

"What the_ hell_?"

After he had recovered from the general shock of a dream like that, Yukimura took out one of his school notebooks and wrote it down in as much detail as possible, just to make sure he didn't forget any of the weirdness of it.

He spent the rest of the day puzzling over the dream. What could have possibly triggered such a dream? It's not like he was one for Disney movies, and it had been at least several months since the subject of the classic book had come up in discussion in class. Alice in Wonderland was by far and away not a subject Yukimura thought about regularly.

After practice that afternoon, Niou approached him.

"Oi, Yukimura."

Yukimura turned. "What is it?"

Niou stuck his hands in his pockets, deliberately slouching as usual. "Well, you know that Halloween costume ball coming up?"

"...Yes..."

"Well," Niou continued, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Yagyuu, "we were thinking-"

"_You_ were thinking," Yagyuu corrected from across the room.

"Fine, fine. _I_ was thinking, what if the tennis club had a theme?"

"A theme?" Yukimura raised an eyebrow coolly.

"Yeah."

"And what did you have in mind."

"Well, what about..." here he paused for dramatic effect, "...Alice in Wonderland?"

Yukimura blinked. And stared. And blinked some more.

Was _this_ what his dream had been leading up to?

At first it sounded like a perfectly ludicrous idea. But after a minute or so pondering the ridiculousness of it, an image crept into Yukimura's mind.

An image of Sanada looking up at him with that adorably stubborn expression, faintly blushing. And Yukimura remembered kissing Sanada's cheek and murmuring, _"Thank you."_ Even just kissing Sanada's cheek in a dream had been... had been...

Yukimura smiled. "I like it."

-end-


End file.
